In recent years, a growing number of home-networking applications and rising concerns regarding wireless signaling interference have energized interest in power line communications (PLC) that use existing power lines and outlet infrastructure for data transmissions.
Generally, PLC can be operated in two frequency bands, narrowband (NB-PLC, 3-500 kHz) and broadband (BB-PLC, 1.8-250 MHz). NB-PLC is popular in smart grid applications, has a longer range (up to several kilometers), and operates at low data rates of up to several hundred kilobits per second, while BB-PLC is mainly used for last-mile Internet distribution and home networking and provides for higher data rates of up to several hundred megabits per second.
While general concepts of home networking over power lines were proposed long ago, electromagnetic interference was a challenge for early PLC solutions and the broad adoption of PLC technologies was initially delayed because of the lack of international technical standards from globally recognized standard-setting organizations. Currently, PLC technologies have matured and support high-speed data rates of more than 100 Mb/s and are being promoted by several industry alliances including the HomePlug Alliance, Universal Powerline Association, the high-definition PLC (HD-PLC) Alliance, and the HomeGrid Forum. Several standards are already available such as International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T) G.hnem and IEEE 1901.2 for NB-PLC, and Telecommunications Industry Association-1113, IEEE 1901, and ITU-T G.hn for BB-PLC.
Current options for modeling PLC network delays are limited to transfer functions and channel impulse response functions. Transfer functions and channel impulse responses limit the analysis of the propagation delay to a systematic level. These models fail to recognize the variability of delays that occur within a real world complex communications system, such as delays based on packet size, channel load, packet collision, and the selected route to a destination.
From the foregoing discussion, it can be appreciated that it would be desirable to have alternative methods for modeling delays on a PLC Network that avoid the drawbacks of the current method.